译者 pdhdon
Most people would say the answer is obvious – – lower wages in China compared to the United States. However, that answer is only partially true. Why? Because labor is only one part of the total cost of a product, and in many cases it’s as low as 20% of the total cost.
中国的产品为何如此便宜？大部分人会认为这个答案显而易见——与美国相比，中国的工资水平要低的多。然而，这个答案只能说是部分正确。为何？因为劳动力成本只是产品总成本的一部分，而且在许多情况下，劳动力占产品总成本的比例可低到20%。
Let’s compare two simple products that are primarily made in China: a stuffed toy animal for a baby and a Frisbee. The stuffed animal is comprised of textile material for the cover, stuffing, two eyes and a nose. The material must be cut into pieces, sewn together and stuffed. The nose, eyes and mouth are usually a pattern of thread that is sewn on the face piece before the toy animal is sewn together and stuffed. The cutting of the pieces may be done by hand or by machine, but the pieces are sewn together by a worker using a high speed sewing machine. The stuffing is usually blown into the stuffed toy by a machine, but the insertion point is closed by hand. This type of a product is considered to be a high labor content product with labor being about 70% of the total cost.
让我们比较一下两种主要在中国生产的简单产品：填充动物玩具和投掷游戏飞盘。填充玩具的外层由布料组成，里面是填充物，余下部分是眼和鼻子。外层的布料必须切成一块一块，然后缝在一起，然后塞上填充物。鼻子，眼睛和嘴的形状在逢布料和塞填充物之前，用线在布料的表面缝出来。裁布料的活儿可以用人工，也可以用机器，但缝布料则要靠工人用高速的缝纫机缝制在一起。填充物通常通过机器吹到填充玩具内，但玩具的填充口要人手工缝好。这类产品被认为是需要大量劳动力的产品，劳动力成本在这里哦产品中占产品总成本的大约70%。
On the other hand, a Frisbee is made of plastic resin (beads or pellets of plastic) in a process that is called plastic injection molding in which the resin is heated in a molding machine to a viscous state and is then injected into a mold, after which the molded part is automatically popped out of the machine in a matter of seconds. The mold can be designed to make several parts at once at the push of a button, and a fully automated machine can be set to run continuously 24 hours a day with very little monitoring by a worker. The highest expense in producing a Frisbee is the cost of making the mold (also called tooling), and that cost is amortized into the piece price of the parts so that the higher the volume of production, the lower the cost of the amortized tooling that is added to the cost of the part. A Frisbee is considered to be a low labor product at about 20% of the total cost.
另一产品，飞盘是由塑料树脂制作而成，制作的过程叫做注塑成型，这要先把塑料树脂放到铸模机内加热，使树脂达到粘稠的状态，然后把这些树脂注入到一个模具中，在数秒钟后，成型的产品部分会从机器内自动吐出。只要按动一下按钮，模具就可以同时制造出数个产品的构件，而且一台全自动的机器可以整天连续运行24小时，却只要很少的人工进行监管。制作模具是生产飞盘成本中花费最多的一项，但这部分成本会分摊到每一部件的成本中，这样，产量越高，分摊到部件中的模具成本就越低。飞盘可看作是低劳动力成本的产品，劳动力成本占总成本的大约20%。
What are other factors of the total cost for the “China price”? First, there are the actual costs of the materials used to manufacture the product, which would be the textile material and stuffing for the toy animal and the plastic resin for the Frisbee. Because of the high volume of materials and resins ordered by Chinese companies, the pricing would be as low as it could be.
其他组成“中国产品价格”总成本的有哪些因素？第一个，用于制造产品的原料的实际成本，如生产玩具的布料和玩具填充物，生产飞盘的塑料树脂。由于中国公司订购的布料和树脂数量非常之多，这些原料的价格会尽可能的低。
Second, there are the wages for the workers directly involved in producing the parts. Labor is abundant and cheap in China because even though 300,000 have risen into the middle class and above, this still leaves one billion people living at the poverty level. At any one time, there are an estimated hundred million workers who are unemployed and underemployed, which is about equal to the number of Americans employed in full time jobs.
其次，直接参与生产产品的工人工资。中国的劳动力丰富，并且廉价，即使现在中国有30万的人口步入了中产阶级及以上的生活，但仍有10亿人口生活在贫困线附近。在任何时候，估计有亿数的工人失业或者找不到工作，这个数量相当于美国在充分就业时期的就业人数。
All employees in China have the right under law to join the ACFTU, which claims some 170 million members and is controlled by the Communist Party. ACFTU has a monopoly on trade unionizing in China and creation of competing unions is illegal. Party leaders have ensured that the ACFTU has a monopolist position. They don’t want autonomous unions springing up, because of the potential threat to their authority. In 2008, collective bargaining became a requirement of the Labor Contract Law that went into effect, forcing most companies — including most foreign owned ones— to create an ACFTU chaptered trade union within them.
在中国，法律规定，工人有权利加入中国全国总工会（后文简称为全总工），全总工号称有1亿7千万会员，并由中共控制。全总共在中国的企业工会中居于垄断地位，创立其他工会组织在中国是为非法。档的领导人保证全总工拥有垄断地位。他们不希望自发的工会组织出现，因为这会对政府权威构成威胁。2008年，中国新的劳动法开始生效，工人的集体谈判成为一种诉求，这迫使大部分公司，包括很多外资企业，在企业内部建立由全总工管理的工会。
However, there are about 1,000 protest demonstrations occurring every week in China, even at the risk of beatings, demotions, dismissal and even torture. As a result, wages have finally been rising by about 15% per year over the past four years. It took suicides by workers in the summer of 2010 to achieve additional improvement in wages and working conditions at plants that were more like prison camps with dormitories for workers to live on site and fences around the buildings so workers couldn’t leave the premises.
尽管抗议示威者有被殴打，降职，解雇，甚至受折磨的风险，然而，在中国 每周仍大约有1000起的抗议示威活动发生。结果是，在过去的四年里，中国工人的工资水平平均每年上涨了15%。2010年夏季，工人自杀的时间促使工厂对工人的工资和工厂的工作环境做了更多的改进，这些工厂原本更像是一个集中营，工人住在工厂的宿舍内，宿舍被围墙团团围住，工人无法离开工厂区。
Third, there are the costs of compliance to health and safety regulation and environmental regulations. These costs are less expensive in China than in the United States because the Chinese government imposes few health and safety or environmental regulations. China doesn’t provide workman’s compensation insurance for their workers so workers hurt on the job don’t receive any compensation when they are injured to the point that they are disabled.
第三，企业在遵守安规和环保规定方面的成本。与美国相比，中国的企业在这方面的成本要低一些，因为中国政府实施的健康和安全或者环境方面的规定较少。中国政府不为工人提供职工赔偿保险，如此，当有工人在工作中受伤，他们不会受到任何的赔偿，除非，受伤的程度使他们成为残疾。
本文由自动聚合程序取自网络，内容和观点不代表数字时代立场
